Wrong way, hot Jupiter

A giant planet's unexpected wind direction is presenting a mystery for astronomers that could upend what researchers have understood about the atmospheres of these types of planets.

by Morgan Sherburne

"It's a really extreme situation where you have one side of the planet being blasted with stellar radiation and the other side is in perpetual night," said Emily Rauscher, U-M astronomer and co-investigator on the project. "You have this gaseous atmosphere that's going to respond by having warm air flow around to the cold side of the planet."

In this study, the astronomers observed that winds shift in the opposite direction from what they normally see and have seen for the last decade. A research team led by astronomers at McGill University's McGill Space Institute and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets in Montreal made the discovery using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Their findings are reported Jan. 22 in the journal Nature Astronomy.